Film Review: Skyfall. Bond Is Back!

I have waited a very long time for this film and not since The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises have I been this hyped for a film. I feel like the wait for Skyfall has been a very long and painful one, but now it’s here and I’ve finally seen it. So was it worth the effort? Well I can easily say that this is one of the best films this year.

 

 

The premise for the story in this film goes something like this:

 

“Bond’s loyalty to M is tested as her past comes back to haunt her. As MI6 comes under attack, 007 must track down and destroy the threat, no matter how personal the cost.”

 

The plot in Skyfall is very good, the script is well-written and there’s a surprising level focus on the characters that was very welcome for me. What I mean by that is that this film’s story really does center around the main characters of Bond, Raoul and M, as the plot thickens things get more complicated for each of them and there is a great deal of drama and revelations to discover. I also liked how much danger there was in this film, and as seen in the trailer the identities of undercover agents gets leaked online, MI6 HQ is attacked and then there’s the obvious fact that Bond gets taken out of action then has to get back into his groove when all of this chaos is going on around him. There are also some interesting secrets to discover in Skyfall and some great nods to the past for fans to enjoy.

 

But what’s a good story without a good cast? Luckily Skyfall has a brilliant cast in place. Let’s start with Daniel Craig as Bond. Now he’s been playing the character for 3 films over the space of 6 years and since Casino Royale he’s become one of my favourite actors. In Skyfall he continues to show me why I think he’s so badass, Craig is totally relaxed in the role and displays Bond in some of his coolest and most badass moments, but also at his most emotional too. Now let’s talk about Javier Bardem, he has always been known as this badass in most of the films he’s been in and his acting skills are pretty damn good. I still haven’t forgotten his awesomeness from No Country For Old Men and in Skyfall he is just the best guy ever as Raul Silva he was intimidating, had a great presence and a level of charisma that makes him stand out from many previous Bond villains. Bardem is just simply wonderful in this film, I loved how his character interacted with Bond and M, and I do believe he’s the best Bond villain for a while. And Judi Dench as M was wonderful, I’ve always liked Judi Dench as M, but this is the first time where her character has come to the forefront of the story and been very relevant to happens, all I can say Dench was wonderful in the film.

 

Then there’s Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory, Fiennes is just badass in everything he’s in and that’s no exception here. While his role isn’t as big as say Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter, he was still cool in the film and had his moments to shine. Naomie Harris as Eve was pretty awesome, I thought she had good chemistry with Bond and it was great to see not only a female MI6 agent, but also a Bond girl who could handle herself in the field of battle. Bérénice Marlohe as Sévérine was totally classy and sexy, I liked her part in the film and I just wish her character had been in the film a lot longer. And lastly Ben Whishaw as Q was awesome, I don’t really recall about the old Q to draw up comparisons, but I thought that Whishaw brought a lovely well of intelligence and wit to his role and I liked his conversations with Bond, they were pretty humourous.

 

 

When it comes to the presentation, Skyfall has all bases covered. The action scenes and sequences are really great, with some great camera work and some really crazy and creative scenes for the good guys and bad guys to work with. But it’s really all about the cinematography in Skyfall. The cinematography is insane! I loved a lot of the scenery from the scenes in Istanbul to London, but I really loved the scenes in China, that’s when the cinematography comes alive. The use of lighting, colours and shadows is especially impressive! Also the soundtrack by Thomas Newman was great and very memorable which I was very surprised about. Now obviously David Arnold handled the previous two Bond soundtracks and while Casino Royale‘s soundtrack was awesome, Quantum of Solace‘s wasn’t very memorable at all. Newman’s soundtrack for Skyfall is very different in tone and feel from the previous Bond films, but it sounds undoubtedly sexy, cool, emotional and most importantly it sounds like a Bond soundtrack! And obviously I made my thoughts clear on the song “Skyfall” by Adele, if you haven’t read that post you can see it here. But in short I think it’s pretty good, though I feel like it could be better.

 

 

Its been said by some critics that Skyfall is the best Bond film since Daniel Craig starred as the character back in 2006 and in a way it really is. Sam Mendes was a great choice to direct this film because of his understanding of the Bond series and also because of his great film career too. There is many things to love about the film like how there is this central link between Bond, Raoul and M or the way Skyfall manages to fuse the newer Bond film elements with some of the older elements from the former films and just I loved the level of nostalgia in this film whether it be visual or audio-based. For me while this film is clearly better than Quantum of Solace, I still feel like Casino Royale was superior, why? I guess it’s because it first Bond film in a while to be really different, edgy and dark, plus I’ve watched it so many times already haha.

 

 

In conclusion Skyfall is a great return to form for this series, this film feels bolder, darker and connects with you on a much deeper emotional level. And with brilliant direction from Sam Mendes, awesome action sequences, fabulous lead performances from Daniel Craig, Javier Bardem and Judi Dench, and sexy presentation both from the visual and audio standpoints, Skyfall is a great Bond film to watch at the cinema and I highly recommend it!

 

Happy 50th anniversary to the James Bond film series, it kicks so much ass!

 

Rating: 8.5/10

Well there’s my review peeps, thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts on the film in the comments below! Until the next time, laters!

John Carter Review

Good day to you ladies and gentlemen, today I come to you with a new film review and it will be on the recent sci-fi action film John Carter.

Never before have I ever seen a film of such a high magnitude fall victim to such a questionable situation with its critical reception and box office numbers. I mean from what I know John Carter as a film is adapted from very rich source material called Barsoom which was a 11-volume series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs. And that is was the source material from the novels that influenced directors like Jame Cameron and George Lucas when making Avatar and the Star Wars films. So with all of this influential material and the novels looking like the basis of every great science fiction adventure film, it is hard to believe that the material could be adapted into such anything so questionable in content. I mean upon this film’s release there were critics that said it was great, while many others said that it was just okay to many other saying it was terrible. But I believe the main thing that hit this film was the box office numbers as it has so far failed to pull in enough cinema-goers to make its money back, it cost $250 million to make which is an absurd amount of money and current at this point it is just short of that at around $234 million which is pretty tragic really. So is the film really that bad? Well now it’s time for me to review the film and give you my thoughts on John Carter.

In terms of plot, the film is set in the 1800s and it focuses on the main protagonist, John Carter. A man from Virginia, he’s a natural-born fight whose fought in the Confederate Army and at that current point in time he was tired of war, didn’t take shit from anyone and was obsessed with finding his treasure of gold. However through a series of events he happens to find a medallion say some words and it transported to MArs also known as Barsoom to inhabitants of that planet. So when he’s on Mars he find that he jump higher and has increased strength due to his higher bone density and Mar’s lower gravity. He then comes across a race of green aliens with four arms who witness his newfound powers and take him in, meanwhile on the other side of the planet there’s a princess called Dejah Thoris who is being forced into marrying the antagonist in the film because with that deed done he can end the war with his power, but the princess isn’t down with tha so she attempts to escape, then meets up with John Carter and then they get to know each other and form an alliance. And now moving onto the antagonist Sab Than, a man who’s been given a great power called the Ninth Ray and under the influence of ancient powerful entities called the Thern he is destined to take the princesses hand in marriage to end the war. So somehow Carter is drafted into this war, while he is also trying to find a way of getting back home…

Confused much? Well if you said yes then you are not alone. I know that wasn’t a very good plot description but the fact of the matter is that there is many layers to John Carter and it would be hard to talk about this film without going into very specific details about characters and story. And that’s the film’s main problem, it has too much story, there’s too many layers and its meshed together in this film in a very choppy and unorganized manner. John Carter’s story starts on Earth and there’s a lot of story there involving a lot of characters past and present, then you have the several events that take place on Mars and all the characters he interacts with, some of which have back stories of their own and then you have the history of Barsoom (Mars). And that’s a lot of material to cover in around a 2-hour film. The problem with the film is that there was too much to work with and while the story gets clearer as events play out on Mars, it still gets lost in translation at many points. I reckon that this film could have been split into 2 halves, though finding a clear-cut off point would be difficult, but I feel that approach would have benefitted the film much better especially with all of the back story that comes with Barsoom and Carter’s history on Earth.

With the cluttered story it makes for some awkward pacing over the course of the movie, it just felt like the film didn’t allow us to take in what information it was trying to find us, much like Clash of the Titans and Green Lantern. I mean you have the whole history of Barsoom given to us at the beginning of the film, but it feels like it was breezed over and not given enough breathing time and I felt it would have worked better at a later part of the film through a descriptive back story by one of the inhabitants that Carter encounters. You also have John Carter being on Mars, adjusting to the fact that he’s on another planet with light gravity, then he comes into contact with the green aliens just a little while afterwards, then you are thrown the new storyline with Dejah, then there’s the whole things with the Thern and Sab and the way you cut from scene to scene without enough time to take in is very frustrating because there are moments of emotion and good action, but they are all too brief and over in a flash. And it is because of this awkward pacing that we don’t get time to properly get attached to characters or believe the budding relationship between Carter and Dejah, such a shame.

So when the film started up and was getting through like the first act of the film on Earth I was like “What the hell is all this shit? Where’s all the killer action shit from Mars? When does he get to Mars? Skip this shit, I wanna see Mars!” When you are thinking about all of those things before a film has even gotten into its element then you know its got problems. Basically the first part of the film dragged, it had awkward editing, pretty dull characters and that part of the plot I didn’t really care about. And even after we get to Mars and thing become more interesting, things are still awkward, choppy and feel incomplete.

Another failing of the film comes in the dialogue, characters and the film’s overall tone. Some of the stuff that happens in this film is actually weird or completely ridiculous regardless of whether its fictional purely because of the way it’s delivered in the film. Firstly, the dialogue is okay most times, but it isn’t great either and a lot of it is cliché and pretty lame sometimes. Secondly the characters are also characters we’ve seen a good few times before except a lot better in those other films, Taylor Kitsch as John Carter is alright and did what he could with the role, but I feel like he was just a bit boring at times and Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris was hot and not half bad acting-wise but overall just a tad annoying and lacking in likability. Willem Dafoe as Tars Tarkas was probably the most memorable of all the characters because he had personality and was actually pretty cool and when it comes to Dominic West as Sab Than he was just the generic villain, no layers to him whatsoever and Mark Strong as Matai Shang was just Mark Strong being himself, interesting character but a little dull. But the main thing that got me thinking was this lighthearted Disney feeling that was sprinkled all over the film, from the comedic scenes to some of the dialogue or the choice of music. It felt very Disney-like, like it was intended for children and dumbed down for adults, it was quite annoying like some of the scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean films and I made a good few comparisons to Disney’s Aladdin film due to the characters, plot and setting. But then the tone of the film keeps switching between kiddie and then adult when you see people being killed and decapitated, so you wonder where the film’s line of violence was.

 

 

One of the things I noticed in John Carter which you may have also notice is that there is a great deal of things in this film that was not present in the trailers, which makes you feel for a while that you are watching a completely different film to what was advertised. And while its good not to show everything in a trailer, I do not think it is good when you make a trailer for a film and show the feature film that doesn’t match up with the trailers at all, like the trailers were trying to sell you a completely different film to the one you are watching. That is what John Carter felt like, especially at the start and throughout many points of the film’s story.

Remember all this chaos and action-packed scenes from the trailers and posters? Well you have to wait for all that stuff and sit through half of a film that feels like its part of another film.

So after all of this hateful comments I’ve given to this film you probably think I hated the film, well I didn’t. Before this film came out I thought it was just another Conan the Barbarian film except it’s in space, but luckily it wasn’t nearly that bad. When I left the cinema screen I was bemused, I found myself liking the film, but it was hard to pinpoint exactly how much I liked with how much I disliked. In the end I came to the conclusion that the film had some good aspects and there was some things I liked but it was just cluttered and messy overall. And as I said before the film frustrates me because there are aspects of the film that do work, John Carter’s past and present story was a deep one and the adventure he goes on is pretty incredible, BUT that is offset but the execution of this film which defeats the elements that the film is trying to sell to you as an audience member. For a film that is meant to be basis of most other science fiction films it sure does pay homage to other films like the recent Stars Wars Episode 1 to Star Wars Episode 6 with the podracing and speeder chases sequences and there’s some obvious parallels to Avatar too.

In the end John Carter is a film that meets somewhere isn’t completely rubbish or a masterpiece either, its somewhere in the middle, while it has some moments of genuine entertainment, it is also plagued with questionable dialogue, a very heavy and convoluted storyline, strange character personalities and awkward pacing. The film is just frustrating because this film had a lot of potential and in a way you could see that it could be so much more, but unfortunately it’s just half a good film, half a mess of a film.
Rating: 6/10

Walk Cycle

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This my walk cycle I did in Pencil and edited in Premier Pro. This was a very pain-staking process because it took me ages to get the motion to work properly. I've had to draw draw this several times and this is the end result. I decided to base my design of my character off of the video game character called Mr. Game and Watch who was one of my favourite charcters in Super Smash Brothers Melee & Brawl. I also tried to add some secondary animation to his nose as he walks along, though I don't think I could get it to bonce properly in time with the character movements.

Run Cycle

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This is my run cycle for my animation course at university. The software I used was Pencil and it was edited in Premier Pro. It was a troublesome yet fun little experiment I tampered with in class. The fact of the matter is that this is a very basic version of the animatic that I wanted to create for this project, the problem was that in the end 2 of my original files became corrupted and unusable so I had to scrap them and start over. Funnily enough once I got into the groove of doing this run cycle it wasn't nearly as diffucult as I thought it would be. My only gripe again this piece of work is that the character looks like he is moving too fast and there is also not enough bounce in his step.

Animatic

This is my animatic for my university course. For those who don't know, an animatic is a storyboard, except the individual scenes are highlighted one at a time to music to give one a sense of perspective and a feel for the overall film before its animated. This was one we worked on in class. to create this we had to get a storyboard, then crop eahc individual image and then import it into Premier Pro. From there we got our music, set the duration and choice a slect number of screens to use for the song, additonally we needed to add in a timecode which needed to be clearly labeled in the video. Once that was done we had to put a few seconds of a black screen at the beginning and end of the video. and then that was it. It was an interesting experience, though a frustrating one due to my problems with the audio, the choice of song which was really scary and strange even for a a cover version and the fact that my work kept disappearing when working on in uni. either way it's here now and for what it's worth it's alright in my opinion.

Goody day to you and Welcome.

Howdy ladies and gentlemen and welcome to my world in blog form. This blog will primarily be devoted to my work from my animation course at university, however there will be moments where I'll add a little variety to the mix and put up any other random stuff that I feel is relevant to this blog. Only time will tell.

Anyways that's all I have to say for now, look for my work when it comes around yo :D